Jill Dillard: Duggar Family Denies Rumors That She’s Back In Arkansas [Update]

Update: though the Duggar family statement asserted that Jill Dillard would be in Central America until summer, as of May 18, she is reportedly home.

Original story:

In response to recent rumors about Jill Dillard, the Duggar family has issued a statement denying that she has returned to the United States. The rumor, repeated on blogs and social media sites, asserts that Jill has posted on Facebook that she is home. However, Jill’s public page bears no such post, and the Duggar Family Official page issued a denial on Thursday, saying Jill would not be home until summer.

Joy Duggar has a wedding coming up. Though the date is unknown, there are reasons for speculation that it may be either in June or before the end of May. However, one factor that’s being considered by those guessing at the wedding date is Joy’s sister Jill. Jill is pregnant, and has announced that her due date is in July and that she will return to Arkansas to have the baby. In the meantime, she’s with her husband in El Salvador.

Since recent posts from the Duggar family — Michelle Duggar declaring how busy she is today, the news that Joy and Austin are getting ready for their wedding, and that they’ve already had their bachelor and bachelorette parties — seem to indicate the wedding is quite soon, eagle-eyed viewers are watching for any sign that Jill has returned. This would be seen as another sign, since Jill could specifically return in time for Joy’s wedding.

Jill and Derick are still posting updates that indicate they are in Central America, after returning there in February, and intend to continue to be there for some unspecified period of time. However, a recent TLC video seems to have confused some viewers.

A portion of the video includes Jill, Jessa, Jana, and Joy Duggar all talking to Jinger Vuolo via video chat, and asking her repeatedly if she’s pregnant yet. It’s a bit of culture shock to those outside Quiverfull movement and similar religious beliefs, who would never consider it a woman’s duty to get pregnant as quickly as possible after marriage. (According to Christian Today, their cousin, Amy Duggar King, reported that she was interrogated similarly when she returned from her honeymoon.)

The conclusion many viewers jumped to was that the video was new. This would mean, of course, that Jill, Jessa, Joy, and Jana were all in the same place: the Duggar home in Arkansas. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Instead, the video appears to have been filmed before Jill left for El Salvador in February — in other words, when Jinger had been married for three months. If that level of questioning after six months of marriage shocked viewers, it’s no wonder they didn’t consider it might have been after only half that time.

Regardless of the video, though, the Duggar Family Official Facebook page answered firmly on Thursday: Jill is not home and will not return until summer.

On Wednesday, the Duggar family shared Jill and Derick’s latest update to the page, adding a brief commentary about being thankful to hear from them.

Quickly, speculation surfaced in the comment section, with one viewer saying

They just posted pics. She’s home

Across social media, variations of this have popped up, attributing the source to “Facebook” or “Jill’s page.” Jill’s public Facebook page bears a few photos from the past week, but the most recent ones, posted Tuesday and Wednesday, are pretty clearly at her home-away-from-home in Central America.

In further comments to the Duggar Family page, though, came clarification that the video was the source of the confusion. In fact, the attribution to “Jill’s page” seems to come from a still screenshot from the same video, posted Monday as a show promotion.

“The Dillards are still in Central America but will be home this summer to have their new baby!”

Though “summer” is often used loosely, if the Duggar family is using the literal calendar meaning, then Jill Dillard won’t return to Arkansas until June 20 or later, which, depending on her actual due date, could put her at anywhere from 34 to 38 weeks pregnant.